'I was a suicide bomber': Paris suspect charged in Belgium

(Agencies) Updated: 2016-03-20 06:49

Story Highlights:

* Wounded Paris suspect questioned by Belgian magistrate
* Abdeslam charged with "terrorist murder": prosecutor
* Lawyer says will fight extradition to France
* France steps up security, "relief" for families affected

'I was a suicide bomber': Paris suspect charged in Belgium

Paris shooting suspect, Salah Abdeslam, and suspected accomplice, Hamza Attou, are seen at a petrol station on a motorway between Paris and Brussels, in Trith-Saint-Leger, France in this still image taken from a November 14, 2015 video provided by BFMTV on January 11, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

BRUSSELS/PARIS - The prime surviving suspect for the Nov 13 Paris attacks planned to blow himself up at a sports stadium with fellow Islamic State militants but changed his mind, he told Belgian investigators on Saturday.

The admission by Salah Abdeslam came a day after he was shot in the leg and captured during a police raid in Brussels, ending an intensive four-month manhunt.

"He wanted to blow himself up at the Stade de France and ... backed out," said the lead French investigator, Francois Molins, quoting Abdeslam's statement to a magistrate in Brussels before he was transferred to a secure jail in Bruges.

The gun and bomb attacks on the stadium, bars and a concert hall killed 130 people and marked the deadliest militant assault in Europe since 2004.

Molins told reporters in Paris that people should treat with caution initial statements by the 26-year-old French national. But his capture and apparent urge to talk marked a major breakthrough for investigators after the trail had seemed to go cold.

Abdeslam's lawyer said he admitted being in Paris during the attacks but gave no details. He told reporters his client, born and raised by Moroccan immigrants in Brussels, had cooperated with investigators but would fight extradition to France.

Legal experts said his challenge was unlikely to succeed but would buy him weeks, possibly months, to prepare his defence.

Belgian prosecutors charged Abdeslam and a man arrested with him with "participation in terrorist murder".

Abdeslam's elder brother Brahim, with whom he used to run a bar, was among the suicide bombers.